The High Mileage Track car

[burrellbloke]

Yes. We had a “medium” Gripper and wore it out after about 2 and a half years and 20ish track days. The new plates were only about £150 to replace (as a part) - it was done at the same time as a gearbox rebuild to replace some synchros which we then had to rebuild again after a slave failure.

Our Gripper is very noisy, very aggressive, but very effective on track.

 

[Dowling93]

That's not too bad then! I was thinking a yearly thing. I'm guessing when you do end up replacing the plates you may as well freshen the box each time with new seals and bearings. Is it an easy job to do yourself if you had the time and patience?
It would be the aggressive one I'd go for seen as it's purely a track car

 

[burrellbloke]

That's not too bad then! I was thinking a yearly thing. I'm guessing when you do end up replacing the plates you may as well freshen the box each time with new seals and bearings. Is it an easy job to do yourself if you had the time and patience?
It would be the aggressive one I'd go for seen as it's purely a track car

@EthanMenace Has not fiddled with the Gripper yet. But I am sure with a few technical tips he could do it.

 

[RSRowe]

Me and the boys had the aggressive load grippers in our Clios for a number of years without a drop in performance, but we were exclusively trailering our cars to and from track. Looking at MOT history, I was doing ~2500 miles a year on track in mine.

Gav does alot of road miles in his, and that'll be where most of the wear is coming from.

 

[Dowling93]

Would either of yee say that there is much of a difference between the helical style diffs and the gripper?
That's decent milage before needing to service it which would sway me a lot!

 

[burrellbloke]

I have no experience of using a helical style diff in a Clio. There are a few users on this site have got helical diffs in their Clios.

The Gripper is a plated diff and my understanding is that it is more aggressive, but with that added aggression you get noise. My car sounds broken when it moves at slow speeds and even pulling out of a garage in the pitlane on a track day will attract stares from people who hear the car and think that something is wrong with it. The plates wear and the Gripper should be serviced from time to time. I have been told that I should replace the gearbox oil more often to prolong the life of the Gripper.

A helical diff is usually a fit and forget scenario where it will require very little maintenance but is unlikely to perform as well as a plated diff.

Helical diffs can be cheaper to buy and cheaper to use in the long run.

 

[RSRowe]

Would either of yee say that there is much of a difference between the helical style diffs and the gripper?
That's decent milage before needing to service it which would sway me a lot!

A huge difference.
A helical equipped car won't see what way you've gone by the time you get to the first corner.

In fact, my pals gripper equipped 197 could easily out-accelerate my OEM LSD Megane out of corners, despite having over 100 more bhp and however much torque.

The performance is night and day different.

 

[Dowling93]

Going to disappoint some of yee now but I picked up a good gearbox with a blackline diff in it for decent money over the weekend so it's not a gripper Being in Ireland means I needed to get a ferry and an 9 hour round trip drive from Holyhead to near Luton. Still works out about half or more of the price than if I got one here and fitted and refreshed the box so I'll take that.
We've got a 2 post lift going in the shed soon so I'll tackle it and the clutch once that's all sorted. Looking forward to trying it out in January now!

 

[Dowling93]

Over the Christmas break I began to tackle taking out the old gearbox and putting in the new one with the Blackline LSD and new clutch

2 post lift made it far easier this time along with a transmission jack. Didn't take off the suspension subframe, not by choice I'll add j couldn't get the rack out from the UJ in the foot well, just lowered it on the passenger side this time a bit and with a bit of wiggling and curse words it came out easily enough. A few of the nuts and bolts were a bit worse for wear so I've ordered a couple of new ones along with a new wishbone as the main lower balljoint rubber boot was split. Handy have another one spare that I can have ready to slot in each time with fresh hardware rather than waiting.

The transmission jack made life easier for holding up the subframe, hub etc and maneuvering into place.
Bleeding the clutch was a pain in the arse location wise but after a few goes and tricks it all good. Everything back in place and a quick test around the yard to make sure it all works and was a success! Just need to bleed the brakes I think and should be all good for another track day on the 11th January.
I now have one working box with an LSD, a working second hand standard box and a box with a mashed 4th gear
On the list for this year is:
• Battery relocation
• Fit proper brake cooling
• Get suspension geometry setup professionally
• Roof scoop
• Rear wing

 

[Dowling93]

Went to start the Clio the other day and it turns out I let the heat shield earth off it and the manifold and I killed it! Ordered a new one so it should be here this week. Not a bad job to do took all of 20 minutes to take all apart and take it out. 2 bolts on the gearbox side, 1 nut on the engine side, 10mm for the live and 8mm for the executor on the starter pulled it out under the car.

Tested it off the bench and it worked but was a bit lazy, put it back in, checked earths, lives etc nothing and made no difference! I could jump it by bridging the live and executor with a screwdriver but it was too weak to crank the car.
Did some googling and found out it could be a 20amp fuse in the box behind the headlight. That wasn't it fuse was fine. I took off the starter again and sent it over to a friend to properly have a look at it and test it, he said it's old, lazy and a small bit fucked so there's no harm in changing it anyways. I did some more late night googling and searching the forums, found a post by turkie172 where he details the fuses and what each one is. Turns out it could be a 25amp fuse in the box behind the headlight not 20amp! 20amp one is the windscreen wipers. So I'll check that when I go fit the new starter. Hopefully a new one and checking that potential fuse will sort the problem!

In short I fucking hate wiring


On a side note, anybody have a solution for the studs on the cross member support on the front? I'm missing two of them and replaced them with bolts but they are spinning in the threads just as it gets tight? Can I just rethread them or is it more complicated than that?

 

[EthanMenace]

It is just an insert connected to the front stud, you could try tapping it out but sounds like the threads have stripped.

I think I lost a stud at some point so just cut the head off a bolt and screwed it in hand tight with the same loctite I used for the wheel studs, It's still holding strong now.

 

[Dowling93]

Yeah I may just resort to the loctite approach and leave it at that and hope for the best. Cheers!